Column: Maybe it's time to rethink our spending on NASA and space exploration

Is NASA worth it?
This week's nostalgia fit over the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing also brings up some uncomfortable questions about costs versus benefits, and whether space exploration is a valuable investment in America's well being or just a really cool, albeit very dangerous and expensive, national hobby.

I've been reading some passionate rationales for the space travel, written by NASA honchos or space-industry execs, and it seems to boil down to this: We're Americans! We go to where no man has gone before! We're No. 1 and we need to stay No. 1!

That was an effective battle cry in the days when Americans were in the mood to kick some Soviet butt. But now?

Honestly, if France or Russia wants to beat us to a Mars landing, would it really matter that much? Why not let it happen on their dime?

There's part of me -- the part that loved "I Dream of Jeannie" and still remembers seeing the Apollo 11 astronauts on parade in Chicago -- that views space travel with patriotic pride, and figures that a country that, say, funds studies on the sex lives of butterflies should surely check out Saturn. But I also wonder if NASA is the epitome of how the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

In the 51 years since the founding of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the agency has spent about $400 billion. Factoring inflation, the peak spending year was 1966, when NASA had a budget of $6 billion (about $39 billion in today's dollars), or 5.5 percent of the federal budget. NASA's current budget is about $17 billion, about 0.55 percent of federal spending.

Granted, that $17 billion a year is chump change compared to the really big-ticket items in Washington: The 2009 federal stimulus package, you may recall, was $787 billion, and the Iraq War has cost about $900 billion to date. Between 2001 and 2010, the Bush tax cuts will have cost an estimated $1.9 trillion; that lost revenue alone equates to paying for 50 years of NASA three times over.

On the other hand, NASA's annual budget easily exceeds that of the National Science Foundation ($6 billion), the Centers for Disease Control ($9 billion) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ($4 billion). NASA costs more than the $7 billion spent on the federal Head Start program; more than the $14 billion spent on Pell grants to subsidize college tuition. It costs more than the annual expense of educating Michigan's 1.6 million K-12 students ($13 million).

This year, NASA is costing each American household about $150. If that was put on a ballot, I wonder, would it pass?

Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe the agency that helped invent Tang and Teflon really is more critical or more popular than I imagine.

Or maybe it's time to regroup and rethink. Lots of people are wringing their hands these days about wasteful government spending. Should we be turning that attention to NASA?

Julie Mack's column is published in Saturday's Kalamazoo Gazette, and a second column is posted online during the week. Reach her at 388-8578 or jmack@kalamazoogazette.com.